5 states may face affirmative action votes

SACRAMENTO, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Voters in five U.S. states where illegal immigration is a hot-button issue may see affirmative-action bans on their November 2008 ballots.

American Civil Rights Institute founder Ward Connerly, who successfully pushed similar votes in Michigan, Washington and California , has begun campaigning for November ballots to ban affirmative action in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, USA Today said.

Connerly, a California management consultant, said the campaigns are part of efforts to end race- and gender-based policies nationwide and his organization would stay away from immigration issues, the newspaper said.

Critics, however, said that may be impossible.

"Affirmative action, by its nature, is associated with minorities," Michael Kanner, a political science professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told USA Today. "In Colorado, for example, the dominant minorities are Hispanic, so it is inevitable that the two will be tied together."